


What to Expect

by lerayon



Category: Pitch (TV 2016)
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Future Fic, Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-13
Updated: 2019-02-13
Packaged: 2019-10-27 10:04:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17764700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lerayon/pseuds/lerayon
Summary: A ficlet about Mike Lawson: Expectant Father





	What to Expect

**Author's Note:**

  * For [monkshoodr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/monkshoodr/gifts).



> Pitch Valentine's Gift Exchange 2019

They’re having a baby. A little person-to-be that Ginny calls “Sprout,” and Mike is over the moon.

They keep the news to themselves for five weeks – during which time Mike white-knuckles his way through Ginny’s final two starts of the season, orders four pregnancy books, and secretly begins looking for a house with a big backyard.

He tries to go slow; focus on each early milestone as they track the baby’s growth from poppy seed to apple seed to raspberry. But he can’t help himself. He’s going to be a dad. He and his favorite person made a whole _new_ person, and there’s so much ahead of them. It’s wild and weird and, if he thinks too hard about what it means to create a life, he starts to freak out a little.

Ginny’s runaway thoughts follow a similar track, but carry with them questions about how her changing body now functions.

_Is she tired because she didn’t sleep well, or has pregnancy fatigue kicked in? How much water makes the difference between one middle-of-the-night bathroom visit and two middle-of-the-night bathroom visits?_

For a woman so highly attuned to her body, these uncertainties are initially frustrating for her.

The best Mike can think to do is liken this to coming back from an injury. There are just some things her body will and won’t do right now, and everything comes in its own time. She narrows her eyes at the comparison (“A baby’s not an injury”), but eventually takes his point. He thinks it helps matters once he starts instigating the afternoon naps that have become a necessity for her, and his favorite daily indulgence.

“You sleep a lot, Old Man.”

“So do you, Rookie,” he replies, wrapping his arms around her when she climbs into bed with him and snuggles up close.

__________

Through it all, Ginny is radiantly happy, and Mike can’t stop looking at her.

It’s a relief when they let family and a few close friends in on their secret. At this point, Mike is unable to contain himself. He’s newly in awe of Ginny – falling more deeply in love – and it’s all over his face, all of the time. He knows because he can’t stop smiling, can’t stop reaching for her. Plus, there’s Evelyn Sanders letting loose an operatic squeal whenever she catches them exhibiting what she calls, “Baby Bliss Behavior.”

Once Ginny pops, Mike absently wonders if he’s developing a pregnancy fetish. The baby was real for him the second Gin looked up from the test with shining eyes and a delighted laugh, but the reality of her growing belly unlocks something inside him that’s primal and possessive.

The dark side of those feelings reveals itself when they go public with the news, and the limits of Mike’s tolerance for outside opinions about his wife, her career, and their growing family are severely tested. He prefers to focus on the lighter side.

He didn’t think it was possible for Ginny to become more beautiful to him, but somehow she does. When her energy returns and brings with it an increased libido, Mike is reminded of their first months together – when they were insatiable for each other, and Ginny’s presence kept him in a constant state of arousal. These days, it’s nearly impossible for him to keep up with her.

His desire is now twined with fascination. Ginny’s growing a person, and it’s miraculous to him that her body just knows how to do that. To her begrudging amusement, he takes to documenting everything in pictures. He wants to remember this time; wants Ginny to see herself the way he does. He also wants their kid to grow up with photographs that tell the story of their eagerly anticipated arrival.

It’s serendipity that he catches a shot of Ginny mid-laugh the first time she feels the baby kick. But it takes him two days to grab a family-friendly image of her watching TV with a dinner plate balanced on her belly. She’s flipping him off in the first few attempts.

Around month seven, he gets really good at capturing stolen moments. Ginny floating serenely in the pool. Ginny in half camel pose. Ginny asleep in the nursery glider. Ginny and their Sprout.

If Mike could stop time and live inside those moments for days on end, he would.

__________

Fairly early in the pregnancy, he was already daydreaming about baby’s first steps, and concocting scenarios that involved jumping through sprinklers, camping out in a pup tent, and a half-dozen other activities that would require grass and trees and enough space to let a kid and their imagination run wild. But in all the adventures he thought up, the kid was just a hazy vision.

Now it's months later, and he startles awake from a dream about a girl – a little curly-haired beauty with Ginny’s dimple and his eyes. He can still hear her peals of laughter. It’s too early to wake Gin, so he curls up beside her and whispers to the baby.

“Hey there, little girl. It’s Daddy.”

Later that week, Ginny awakens to find him quietly reciting to her belly the list of names they keep on his phone.

“Rosie. Georgia. Caroline. Sadie.”

It’s silly, but Mike had begun to hope the baby would kick when she heard one she liked, and he’d have a new angle to use in his campaign to finally convince Ginny to let them find out the sex and confirm what he knows to be true.

“Gracie. Sophie. Alice. Charlotte.”

“Wow, you’re really that sure it’s a girl.”

Mike looks her in the eye and nods.

“Alright. We’ll call the doctor today."

__________

Three hours later, two months before making her debut, little Ruby Baker Lawson chooses her name.

She will have dad's hazel eyes and a dimple like mom, and, growing up, she’ll delight in knowing the story of her naming is daddy’s favorite story to tell. She’ll even have a picture to go along with it.


End file.
